The G20 Leaders’ Declaration on Migration

International migration has effectively entered the G20 agenda only two years ago. When Turkey hosted the Antalya Summit in November 2015, it had also recently become host to several million refugees, mostly from Syria – some of whom were moving on to the Balkans and further to Western Europe. Accordingly, the Antalya Communiqué describes the “ongoing refugee crisis” as a global concern and uses rather specific language in calling for burden-sharing among states and more support for refugees, including through additional humanitarian and development assistance and third-country resettlement.

[...] The absence of “concrete actions” is unfortunate because there are pressing needs in several policy areas related to refugee protection and labor migration. G20 leaders represent the largest and richest economies of the world and could have helped to make significant progress. The following three examples illustrate concrete actions that are not only necessary, but also could have been initiated at the Hamburg summit. [...]

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